


liberation transmission

by atlantisairlock



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Moving On, Not Canon Compliant, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 11:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1604273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dauntless keep going. Dauntless don't wallow. Dauntless remember and honour those they love... but they know how to move on." </p><p>An alternative to chapter Fifty-Six, told from Tobias' point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	liberation transmission

**Author's Note:**

> title from the lostprophets album.

“Matthew told me you stole some of the memory serum and a truck. I have to say, I didn’t really believe him.”

There's no real shock, just a numb, vague surprise, when Christina's words reach me, but then again, I haven't felt anything with any intensity since Tris' death. Just fuzzy emotions, lingering on the surface. I just turn to look at her. "Then why did you come?" _  
_

Christina shrugs, her footsteps quickening as she makes her way down the hall. "Just in case." There's a glint in her eye and a minute inflection in her voice. Somewhere, deep down where I am still Four, still training initiates, still supervising sessions, I know - I know she's lying to me.

She didn't come just in case.

She came because she knew.

"Give me that vial, Tobias." Christina's gaze doesn't waver when she looks me in the eye. "Give it to me."

My grip tightens around the serum. "No."

There's a flare in her dark eyes, almost like a warning, and her voice takes on a harder, more steely tone. "Four. Remember who you are."

"I am  _Dauntless,_ " I hiss. "I am  _not afraid_ to step into the unknown and begin all over again, to wipe the slate clean and start a new life. I am not afraid."

"You are Dauntless _,_ " Christina agrees, tilting her head to the right. "And you should know that what you are doing is the act of a  _coward_ , running away from your fears and your problems instead of facing them _._ Dauntless are many things, Four, and so are you. But they are not cowards. And I know for a fact you aren't one." 

I want to sigh, but it comes out as a hoarse half-wheeze, half-snicker, grating on my throat. "Maybe I am. Maybe I've changed. Maybe I'm a coward." I raise my chin defiantly, staring her down. "Maybe I am."

"No, you're not." She takes another slow step forward, and when she speaks again, her voice is softer, even though each word she forces past her lips is loaded with emphasis. "You can't become a person she would hate." Her voice cracks on the last word and she blinks, her eyes glittering with the beginning of tears. "She would have hated this. You know her as well as I do, Tobias - it would have broken her heart to see you erase her from your memory - erase everything both of you ever  _had_ \- like she didn't even _matter to you!"_

I feel the anger burn, the flame devouring me from inside, fueled by the fact that she's  _right._ She's right; this is the act of a coward, and if Tris and I had switched places, if this had been her choice... it would have broken my heart, too. I feel the shame replace the rage, sluice through my veins - she would never have chosen the easy way out.

But I did.

The vial of serum slips from my hand, and it shatters to pieces on the ground. The sound of glass scattering is like a shot -  _like the shot that killed Tori, like the shot that must have killed Tris._ I step backwards, slumping against the wall, and suddenly the tears are coming hard and fast and I know I haven't cried like this since I saw Tris' body, since I said my last goodbye. I cover my face with my hands and try to stem the flow but my entire frame is shuddering too shakily to stop, to regain control over myself. I hear the shuffle of Christina's shoes as she comes over and kneels down, puts her hands on my shoulders. "The person you became with her is worth being,” she says, and in the haze of sharp pain and the hollow ache in my chest I think I hear how her voice cracks again. “If you swallow that serum, you’ll never be able to find your way back to him.”

The person I became. This person. _Me._

My chest still feels like I've been punched over and over and over and my breaths are coming in short bursts and everything hurts,  _everything,_ and at that moment I want to ask Christina  _how._ How she did it. She never even got to say a proper goodbye to Will, and she had to live with knowing that it was her best friend who killed him, whatever the circumstances had been. She must have felt the way I do, right now, like I can't breathe, like I've just run ten miles, like nothing in this world is ever going to be right again. 

She is right there, in front of me, and I can hear her ragged breathing and see her too-bright eyes and the way she stares at me, the way Tris always did when our eyes met, when she looked at me. I see her swallow visibly, I feel her fingers tighten on my shoulders, and then I want to choke out another question - losing that much, losing so much, how could she ever -  _ever_ \- learn to, or choose to, love again?

She gets up on her feet, reaches out to me. There's the slightest hint of a smile on her face and a gaze that is a question and confirmation all at once. She knows, she understands, she loves.

She loves.

Me.

For a moment, I just stare at her.

I remember that she came here to find me. To remind me that I was more than that. I remember her words. I remember Will, and the haunted look in her eyes, the clenched fists, her silence. And I begin to understand. I begin to understand how she could love again, how she could move past the paralysing pain and fear and jumbled mess of emotions I can't begin to put a word to. I begin to understand because I remember that Evelyn chose me, even after everything - she still chose me. I remember that Cara could forgive her brother's killer. I remember that Caleb was willing to make the greatest sacrifice just for the sake of gaining his sister's forgiveness. I remember how Tris chose to save her brother even after he betrayed her, how she chose to risk everything for someone else at her expense. 

I remember Tris.

Back then, I chose her. Back then, she chose me.

She never wanted to leave me, and I never wanted to lose her. In a perfect world, she would still be here and we would have won the war without all the people we had to lose. But I know that's not how war works, and I know life is cruel and painful and unfair - I have always known. 

But I know, too, that even in the hardest times we all have a choice. We have a choice to turn against everything we've even known and everyone we've ever loved, and feed the bitterness and hate and allow it to eat us away from the inside. But we also have a choice to find something, even when our world is crashing down. 

We had the choice to find something. And we found it. Love. Solace. Each other. We found happiness. We chose it. 

We chose it. 

I know now - I always knew, just that it hurt so much too much to face it - that Tris would have wanted me to keep choosing happiness, no matter what. Choosing to be bitter is easy, but Dauntless were never meant to take the easy way out. Dauntless keep going. Dauntless don't wallow. Dauntless remember and honour those they love, but they move on. 

By choosing Tris, I chose happiness, and strength, and bravery.

Today...

_For her._

I reach out and take Christina's hand, and she pulls me up. I smile back at her. There is something. Maybe not yet, but not never. 

Today, for her, I choose it again. 


End file.
